Epson Home Cinema 6500UB Projector Review

December 28, 2008 - Art Feierman

Those LCoS projectors though, barely increase brightness when going to their brightest modes, so the Epson is roughly twice as bright as any of the LCoS projectors when you are willing to compromise the picture to deal with modest to moderate ambient light. Those LCoS projectors just can’t go there.

The only brighter overall 1080p projector that costs less is the Optoma HD806, which is built for brightness. The Epson, however kills it in terms of black level performance, and overall picture. The Optoma is about as bright in best mode (Cinema) as the Epson in LivingRoom mode (and more than twice as bright as the Epson’s TheaterBlack 1 mode, but doesn’t have any brighter modes.

Sharpness

Epson swears that the 6500UB uses the same Fujinon lens as the older 1080 UB, and that any improvement comes from better black levels and image processing. Personally, I find that interesting, because I’m seeing a substantial difference in sharpness between the early 1080 UB here, and this Home Cinema 6500UB. The monitor image below looked about a sharp as any projector I have reviewed, LCD, DLP or LCoS.

I have to believe that the new panel configuration and polarization (optical light path) also must figure in, because of the rather significant improvement.

Close up of a computer monitor, from Space Cowboys (Blu-ray), left to right Home Cinema 6500 UB, Epson Home Cinema 1080 UB, Panasonic PT-AE3000, and BenQ W20000. The Home Cinema 6500 UB is one of the sharper 1080p projectors out there.